Rick and Morty Season 9 Officially Changes The Show’s Genre

Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Rick & Morty season 9, episode 1, "There's Something About Morty."

While Rick and Morty season 9, episode 1 is a stellar comeback for the long-running adult swim hit, the outing also changes the show’s genre and then brings it back to normal in the space of a single episode. Rick and Morty season 9 opens with a big twist, as the show reveals that Evil Morty has been blackmailing Rick into working for him off-screen. Although Rick characterizes this relationship as effectively a hostage situation, Morty still becomes insecure when he realizes that the pair appear to have some fun together.

This illusion is soon shattered when Rick gleefully reveals that he has used Morty to escape Evil Morty’s clutches, creating an entire elaborate “Bunker Realm” to hide from the villain. What ensues in the episode’s closing act is the best Rick and Morty fight ever, with Rick and Evil Morty facing off in the Bunker Realm, repeatedly destroying this reality and each other’s bodies while duking it out. Their attempts to see who is ultimately the most powerful are hilariously thwarted by a twist ending.

However, it is the earlier revelation that Rick has secretly been working with Evil Morty offscreen for who knows how long post-season 7 that truly changes Rick and Morty’s genre in season 9, episode 1. When the show first began, Rick and Morty was a straightforward buddy comedy, with the classic character dynamics that set-up implies. The erratic loose cannon, Rick, and his comparatively sensible straight man, Morty, got into scrapes every week, with Rick escalating events and Morty trying to minimize the damage.

Rick and Morty Season 9 Reinvents The Show’s Buddy Comedy Setup

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Of course, there were plenty of times that Rick and Morty messed with this basic formula. In outings like season 1, episode 6, “Rick Potion #9,” or the much derided season 5, episode 4, “Rickdependence Spray,” Morty was the one responsible for the original mess in the episode’s story, although he still usually wanted to do as little damage as possible when facing his mistakes, while Rick was always happy to escalate every situation. However, by and large, the show followed a fairly familiar buddy comedy setup.

This changed around the end of season 5, when Rick and Morty finally addressed just how imbalanced, toxic, and codependent their relationship had been since its inception. In what read like a meta commentary on the writing of the series itself, Rick and Morty’s confrontation with Evil Morty over the destruction of the Central Finite Curve saw both characters admit that Rick’s behavior had always been manipulative and exploitative. Thus, in seasons 6-8, the pair boasted a more balanced dynamic.

Evil Morty’s Season 9 Episode 1 Ending Resets Rick and Morty’s Status Quo

While this worked in Rick and Morty season 8, season 9 immediately changed things once more. Since Rick has been so comparatively humanized, the show revealed that Evil Morty was now the loose cannon in this new buddy comedy dynamic, making Rick the relative sensible straight man of the story. This was a wild twist, since Rick had rarely been relied on to temper anything, but things got even weirder when the show reversed the change all over again.

With Evil Morty imprisoned by Time Cops and the central duo free from his machinations once more, the episode ends by once again resetting its status quo. For one brief outing, Rick was the Morty to Evil Morty’s new Rick, and the show proved just how much Morty’s grandfather struggles to be the milder, more sensible partner in this buddy comedy dynamic. Fortunately, Rick and Morty season 9 then reset its status quo with Evil Morty’s imprisonment, leaving viewers once again unsure where the show’s next episode will take its twisty story and mismatched title characters.